Aegis
by Vanui
Summary: She never realized how quickly life could change from peace and happiness to chaos and despair. But giving up is out of the question. She can only move forward and forge a path of her own, pick up a sword and shield and fight. H/M; K/S


Once upon a time – No, rather, once in another age, a different century, a certain spatial distortion...

A pale, weak-hearted girl waited her turn before the gallows. She was frightfully frail, almost translucent as a ghost, and her frame shook and shivered in the cool damp air of the prison cell. Everywhere, she was surrounded by stone, walls that sucked away the little warmth she managed to gather, gray blocks of certainty and solitude and a promise of damnation. Everywhere, save for the lines of metal that made the doors to her cell and allowed the fearful eyes of the poor lackey, forced to shove the meager mush of food through the bars, to rapidly steal multiple glances at her nearly lifeless form. As if she were truly a being to be feared, weak and trapped like an animal as she was.

Long black hair falling over her face, she curled into a little ball under the sunlight streaming in through the barred opening far above her reach. Weeks ago, she would have been trying to climb up to the opening and ripping away at the bars; now she had learned to conserve whatever energy possible. Learned, as well, not to cry. Not to talk back. To avoid their eyes.

Learned how pain and depravity could dominate life.

In the time she had spent laying underneath the small patch of sunlight and the glare of the moonlight, she thought about many things. She thought about her life before the empty loneliness of the cell. She thought about the luxury of her home, of her meals and snacks, of her servants, of the porcelain vases at the side of the dining room, of the chubby cheeks of her little brother, of her family lying lifeless and prone in pools of their own blood.

"Akemi."

She remembered the loathing and disgust. From an unfortunate accident involving a stray demon in the castle, she was marked by a jagged, long and ugly scar that ran from the top of her forearm to the junction between the ring and middle fingers. Five years old when it happened, she scarcely knew the specifics or the circumstances surrounding the incident. In fact, the only way she was aware it wasn't a fabrication of her mind was the occasional aching pain that shot through the scar like flashes of lightning in a dark thunderstorm. This, coupled with the spiteful and revolted glances others gave her, served to constantly remind her of her deformity.

They thought her cursed. Even the demon hunters, who were thought to be the experts on the creatures, deemed her cursed after one simple, uncaring, indifferent look at the scar.

"Akemi Homura."

A year ago, she would have thought them superstitious fools envious of her wealth. Only her family treated her as human, and they never spared the scar a second glance. That was, perhaps, their undoing and her demise.

She wasn't there when it happened, no matter what the court or the king or anybody else said. She only found out when the Duke dragged her out of her room and forcefully brought her, snarling and held at the point of his sword, to the library where the scarlet carpet was stained dark with blood. They told the kingdom she had summoned demons in the solitude of her room while her family had a late brunch in the library.

Insanity and evil, they proclaimed, had driven her to murder her flesh and blood, and so to preserve the sanctity and safety of the kingdom, they would, unfortunately, be forced to publicly execute the demon spawn.

"Disgusting."

She wasn't stupid. Neither were the investigators. The gaping wounds across the bodies were clean and swift, the work of a sharp blade, cut precisely across the throat. It was too meticulous to be the work of demons and they all knew it.

Part of the reason was her scar. The other was her fortune. With no one left to inherit, their lineage would be gone, the property and the money divided amongst the nobles and the king. Her father was, by no means, the richest of the nobles; however, he commanded a large territory, one that was dwarfed only by the king's, and now the other nobles were squabbling over how the land was to be split amongst themselves.

"Bastards."

The extent of their greed made her sick. Her mother and father, gone. Her brother, scarcely old enough to call her by name, would never be heard again. All this for land. Her family for earthly desires.

Her scar throbbed, and she cursed it. The murderers, damn them, were far too cowardly to kill her by their own hands. They were afraid of demons and terrified of anything bearing their magical residue, which they believed was imbued in the very essence of her skin underneath the jagged scar tissue. Her scar itself had never done anything to anybody else. Humans, she now knew, were truly the creatures to be feared and hated.

The cold bit her sharply and sent her out of her musings, her dark eyes focusing on the bars of her cell. Curling up into an even tighter ball, she realized now that the sun was setting. Her source of warmth vanishing for the night, her heart grew heavy as it always did when she anticipated the hours of unending shivering and misery and the sleeplessness that followed. Grimly, she reflected that, funnily enough, she had become nocturnal if only for the sake of sleeping in the sunlight's warm embrace, dreaming of laughter and smiles and twinkling eyes; the demons were nocturnal too.

Something white flashed outside the corner of her eyes.

Straightening up, blinking, she wondered if exhaustion had finally given way to insanity before a glowing white, elegant feline gracefully padded up to the entrance of her cell. Red eyes stared through the metal bars, unblinking, and then she questioned her sanity once more. She was kept in the tallest tower of the kingdom's massive prison, and aside from the occasional routine trays of food placed before her cell, no one entered. An animal could hardly sneak into her tower, unless it was a rat, of course.

A rat, however, it was not, and the cat seemed to be waiting for something.

She quickly realized that the cat was waiting for her to do something or at least acknowledge its existence. Its glowing red eyes regarded her with intelligence, and she had a strange feeling that the cat understood her dire situation and miserable existence, and who she was and how she got there and what she wanted. Compelled by a mysterious stirring within her chest, she reached out and grabbed the bars of the cell, her eyes locked onto the red orbs.

_For what do you wish for?_

A voice, high pitched in tone and emotionless in execution, had spoken inside of her mind, and though she felt terrible fear clog her throat, she was not alarmed. She swallowed, hands tightening around the cold metal bars. She almost expected it.

"I wish..." she whispered, voice hoarse from disuse. For some water, she thought, but of course she wouldn't waste her wish on something so simple. Did she even believe, however, that her wish would be granted? But it was worth an attempt at the very least. One last effort before she was taken to be dangled by a rope around her neck. And then she knew what she wanted.

"To live. I wish to live." The plea was weak, but there was resolve behind the words.

_Then so it shall be._

The cat's piercing, burning eyes focused intently on her person, and she found herself unwillingly returning the stare with an equal amount of attention, leaning forward and forgetting what she had just wished for mere moments ago. Then she began to question. This was a dream, she thought in a muddled haze. A talking, red-eyed white cat had spoken inside her mind, and that statement was bewildering in more than one way.

_This will hurt._

There was no time to react to the warning, and then the only sensation she was aware of was the white hot shooting pain that ran along her jagged scar, agony spreading like wildfire across her skin and flesh. As quickly as it came, however, the pain vanished and the pale, shaking girl was left with only a hollow tiredness that weighed heavily down upon her mind and body. Sleep beckoned blissfully, and slowly, she closed her eyes and slumped forward.

The image of glowing red eyes followed her into her dreams and faded into darkness.

…

There were footsteps echoing in her ears. Hurried footsteps, footsteps that would frantically sprint in one direction, stop, and begin to blindly turn to a new one in search of something. Someone? Desperately, the footsteps searched. Stopped. Began to move again. It was maddening to hear, and she wanted to shout at the owner of the pair of feet and tell them to cease their indecisive sprinting.

_You can stop this, you know._

It was the voice of the cat, mocking and taunting yet completely devoid of emotion. She tried to ask what it was that she could stop, but her voice wouldn't come out and her question was answered regardless. The sound of a blade being unsheathed before the squelching of metal piercing flesh and blood reached her ears. She felt sick and weak at the blood-curdling scream that followed.

Then a hand was gripping her arm tight enough to bruise and dragged her out from the darkness into the hallway of her home. Her eyes followed the hand to the arm to the shoulder and to the face of the person forcefully pulling her along so. The cold touch of metal brushed up against her neck, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Duke's sword held in his white-knuckled grip, the blade far too close for comfort. It was that scene again, she realized, the same scene she had replayed in her mind for a tortuous amount of time in the silence and stillness of her cell.

"Where are we going? What's going on?" Her mouth moved of its own accord, a motion that she could not control. Her arms flailed and her body struggled to break free of the Duke's grasp, but one press of the sword kept her in place. The cool, calculating voice always answered the same way.

"You know where, you murderous little demon."

They reached the library in an instant, and he kicked the door open without any regards to its antique value. She felt the irritation and confusion from that time wash over her mind, and then all her feelings mixed itself together and transformed into horror once she laid eyes on the sight beyond the library doors. Except this time, she noticed, the bloodbath was different. This time there was only one body.

A girl lay there, no older than herself, pale from the drainage of blood yet lacking any sort of open wound. She possessed a surreal and terrifying beauty borne from the fragile nature of her petite body while her pink hair radiated an innocence befitting of a maiden. The girl was beautiful, she thought, and a twinge of guilt assaulted her conscience for appreciating how her family members, not this girl, had been spared. Who was this girl, though? This maiden that was so breathtaking and terrifyingly dead, this person whom she wanted desperately to touch.

Touch? Confusion swirled inside her head. Did she want to touch her? Yes, she did, she realized. Her hand twitched at her side, and again, she wondered who this girl was. The pink hair, the delicate lips, the closed eyelids and the soft curves of the body were familiar in a strange, twisted sort of way. And yet...

Her mouth, once more, moved of its own accord, as if she were reliving a memory. But this, she distinctly noted in a detached and connected way, this was a dream. In a half sob, she whispered:

"Kaname Madoka."

She sat up suddenly, inhaling quickly, heart pounding, head spinning, blinking rapidly, taking in the darkness that threatened to swallow her whole. Her eyes adjusted accordingly, and rough wrinkles appeared before her vision which she realized were trees, larger than life, stretched up like impenetrable walls on all sides, from the gnarled, snake-like roots to the canopy high above covered by dense branches filled with green leaves, and she wondered where in the world she was and if she was still dreaming.

Blades of grass tickled her palm, the scent of fresh dirt wafting through the air, and the sound of crickets chirping and owls hooting caught her attention. It was, unmistakably, the middle of the night and she was, undoubtedly, in the middle of a forest.

Rustling caught her attention, and before she could prepare herself, red eyes and white fur hopped out of the underbrush, white moonlight producing an ethereal aura on the cat and illuminating a strange red circle on its back which she hadn't noticed previously. It sat down an arm's length away and patiently flicked its tail back and forth. Back and forth. She looked at the feline with fear clogging her throat and awe in the back of her mind. Confusion dominated the forefront. This was it. The strange cat had somehow fulfilled her wish. Unbelievable. Impossible, and only possible because she was there, in the forest, life throbbing in her surroundings, a welcome change from stone walls and metal bars. She had escaped. Or...

_Fear not. You are not dead._

But wasn't she? Freedom tasted all too sweet, and she knew that her freedom would come at a price, whether it be her eventual death or some sort of servitude. Her soul, even, if the cat wanted it. Not that it mattered what she thought anyway, because she knew if the cat desired anything of hers it would take it with or without her consent. With or without her knowledge. Death almost seemed preferable to the sudden debt that hung on her shoulders and weighed her down. Then she remembered her pride.

She coughed, shivered, and said, "Thank you. I owe you my life."

_Indeed, you do._ The tail flicked back and forth. Side to side. Amused or, perhaps, indifferent. _But lives are delicate and easily devoured, and I have need for yours. You will live, but in return, you must listen to my request._

Obey, it meant. She didn't have a choice, or she did and if she chose the wrong one it was the same thing as having no choice at all. "I'm listening," she said. Tilted her head.

_There is a house nearby_, it began, head turning sideways and facing the moon. She quickly realized it was pointing out the direction of the aforementioned house and nodded. _Inside are two women. They are the inhabitants of the home and manage the forest you see all around you. Powerful women, they are. Not to be trifled with._

"Are you telling me to run?" she asked. Coughing once more, she felt as if the forest had suddenly grown eyes in all directions, and many gazes burrowed into her skull like pins and needles. She shivered. Spine gone cold.

_I am neither telling you to run nor to walk, but merely that you seek them out for your own salvation. You are free to go any way you would like. However, they will provide you the means for survival and even_ – the cat purred – _revenge._

Revenge. What a strange concept. Revenge hadn't even crossed her mind. She had been too busy preparing herself for immediate death, for rejoining her family in the afterlife, that she hadn't given a thought for justice to prevail. That she could be the reckoning that brought the justice was an even further-fetched thought, yet the idea was appealing. Too appealing. She swallowed hard. "How?" she forced out.

The cat shifted its paws and stood up on all four of its legs. It turned to leave. _Why don't you see for yourself?_

In the blink of an eye, the white form and red eyes were gone, vanished as if they were never originally perceived in reality. A ghost, as it were, and she fought against the overwhelming desire to panic and take in rapid breaths to send herself into dizzy bliss. Her fingers clenched against moist dirt and wet grass, her nose breathed in the smell of earth and green, and her eyes squeezed shut, eyelids tight against one another, tight as the drawn rope of a noose bearing the weight of death. Revenge. What had her fairy tale books and bedtime stories taught her about revenge? The maids told her once about a man who devoted his entire life to avenging the murder of his beloved. He'd been brutally beat to a bloody mass with a mace, hadn't he? Or had he taken the revenge and found that it could hardly satisfy the ache in his heart, only inspired a lust for more and more blood instead?

The details were lost. The maids hadn't meant for her to hear the story, after all, and neither of the ends she recalled were particularly pleasant. Yet, she resolved, there was no reason to pursue the memory any longer. She could not place faith in stories. She could only forge her own path, one which leaned dangerously to temptation. This was reality. Her life would not end as the myths and legends and story books did.

The stars and the moon shone bright as a beacon when she began to trudge through the untamed greenery of the forest floor, fervently hoping she was heading in the correct direction. Ragged branches clawed at her skin, thorns attacking her bare shins and knees and feet and toes, and from the tiny fires that lit up along her skin with every step she took, she knew her flesh was blemished with small red lines. Her previously perfect porcelain skin. And, although she wasn't a doll, she refused to cry at the pain.

She stopped.

The cabin she came upon was strange, and somehow, through the lines of trees that inhibited her field of view, she had spotted it while it was but a strange brown dot glowing white in the distance, only distinguishable from the tree trunks by its small stature, a dwarf amongst giants. From a closer view, she reckoned it was thrice the height of herself, and the structure lacked any sort of opening for windows or even, as far as she could tell, a door. A quick circle around the place solidified her guess and, if the tired ache in her feet was any indication, revealed to her that the cabin was larger than what a cabin was supposed to be. Or what she thought a cabin was supposed to be. She had never left her father's castle before, and this entire experience would have been thrilling if the circumstances were ignored.

She glanced at the white scar on her arm, at the thin prison-weathered rags she wore, and shivered.

What could she do? Biting her lower lip, wrapping her arms around herself, she slumped against the logs of the cabin and slid down to the ground, knees bending and eyes closing. Revenge. She rolled the word quietly off her tongue and tasted it. What would her father tell her? Her mother? They'd disapprove. Maybe. Her mother was far too kind, but her father was far too noble. For the sake of delivering justice and pride, perhaps her father would tell her to choose whatever she was willing to do, encourage her to take the darker path, even. Then she thought of her brother and his wide eyes and fascination with every little thing in the world and, and, and – she swallowed.

Sighing, she tilted her head back. She met empty air. In one horrifying moment, she realized she had tilted too far back to stop her weight from carrying her backward, and she flailed as her head careened to the ground. The panic disappeared as quickly as it came, however, and a puff of air left her chest as she landed, but otherwise, she was unharmed.

Warm air, familiar to her in the memories of her grand and fragrant kitchen, tickled her cold limbs and caressed her cold cheeks, and as she focused on the wooden planks looming over her head, eyes seeing nothing but the ceiling, she noted the sunset-gold glow of candlelight, present but not glaring in its comfort. She was inside the cabin. Sure enough, once she sat up, there was a clean cut opening through the log wall where she had previously been leaning against. Unbelievable.

Something shuffled against the wood floor. She stiffened in sudden nervousness. And when she heard the low and disconcerting chuckle from behind and saw the shadow of a person displace the candlelight on the walls, she suddenly remembered the white cat's warning.

_Powerful women, they are. Not to be trifled with._

Blood freezing, hands clammy, she noted the distinct claws the shadow displayed where the person's hands should have been. Three long, hooked-prongs on either side, although if she squinted, she could make out the hands at the base of the arm. The claws were so long, in fact, that they touched the floor, the curved ends dark and jagged and twisted in the shadows, and she briefly imagined how painful it would be to have each hooked end dug into her torso and rip out her flesh.

A cold sweat broke out on her forehead, but curiosity and fear overwhelmed her desire to run, and so she stayed where she was, staring out into the dark night of the forest through the gap, watching and waiting for the shadow. It shifted.

"Look at what the cat dragged in this time! Another innocent little girl!" the clawed-girl gestured. She flinched as she sensed the claws draw near her head, but otherwise showed no outward reaction to the revelation, instead focusing on the mocking and almost hungry tone of the girl. Her voice was scratchy, growly, like a beast, wild and untamed, ferocious and challenging, and she knew that if she gave the clawed-girl any small reason or indication of trouble, the girl would sink three hooked claws into her throat or back or any other place that would draw sadistic pleasure and slowly carve her into a sculpture of meat, drinking in her screams and blood all the while.

She blinked the image away.

"Too scared to say anything?" There was the distinct click of shoes on wood with the few footsteps that moved forward before cool metal touched the trembling heat of her pale neck. The cold slid gently, carefully, deceptively sensual, and left a trickling wetness in its wake. Blood, she realized, but the cut was so shallow that she could not feel the pain. Or perhaps her mind was finally numb with exhaustion and malnutrition. How she would kill for something hot and filling to eat, something fresh like baked pies or roasted pork or hot cider that made her feel as if she were drinking the earth and the scent of a thriving forest. Drool pooled underneath her tongue, and she thickly swallowed.

"I rather think the beggar still believes she's a noble. All of this seems as a dream, am I correct?" a new voice, sharply intelligent and sultry in return, spoke over the pulsing tide of blood rushing through the girl's ears. Her mouth dropped dumbly open, then closed and then opened once more. Her eyes followed the new black shadow on the cabin walls, the shape laying a placating hand on the clawed girl's shoulder, long curling hair cascading with her movements.

"Bah, it's no fun if you insist her mind's not all here. Much more satisfying to break them whole," the clawed girl spat. Nonetheless, the cold metal of her claws left the girl's neck and returned to hang limply by her side.

"Now Kirika, she's our guest. You can't break the guests. However, if you are patient, the lumberjack shall be returning tomorrow to trespass on our property and, when he does, you are free to do whatever you like with him," the long-haired shadow appeased, amused. "If you could simply wait the few hours we have remaining before the sun rises–" The shadow stopped itself, moved a hand to its mouth, and cleared its throat. "Excuse me, where are my manners?"

The clawed girl, Kirika, made a disgusted noise and distracted the girl as she sharply turned around and threw her claws haphazardly away into some corner of the room. That was why, when the unexpected warm touch of skin landed on her naked shoulder, she screamed and flinched away, hurriedly whipping her body around and twisting from her position on the floor to finally face the two women of the cabin. The powerful, not to be trifled with, women.

"Oh my, how terribly inconsiderate of myself. I did not mean to startle you." The woman, because she was undoubtedly a woman now if her matronly breasts and healthily curved figure were any indication, quirked her lips into a thin smile, almost patronizing, not quite delighted but certainly expectant. The girl on the floor could only stare at the startlingly clear and unnaturally vibrant shade of blue the woman's eyes were. Her stern face was framed by the lightest shade of blonde the girl had ever seen, and she appeared as an unearthly figure in the golden glow of the various candles framing the cabin room. An angel. She nearly laughed.

"But I did," Kirika scoffed. The woman glanced back at her companion, a rather lanky woman bearing jet black hair cut to frame her face sharply, short and practical, whose right eye was covered mysteriously with a simple eyepatch. Her left glowed a demonic scarlet. The girl didn't see what kind of look the angel-woman gave Kirika, but whatever it was, it silenced her. What a strange pair: an angel and a demon. The woman locked her gaze on the girl once more.

"I am Mikuni Oriko. My unruly companion is Kure Kirika. A pleasure." Oriko extended a graceful and elegant hand and bowed her head slightly, Kirika scrunching her nose in irritation by contrast. Blinking blankly, the girl seated on the cabin floor hurriedly scrambled to her feet and bowed in return. She couldn't possibly have taken the offered hand in her shamefully dirty state.

Limbs trembling, she managed a "Akemi Homura" before bile rose up her throat and she slammed her mouth shut. No longer was she afraid of death, if she ever truly had been. She was afraid of how long these two would torture her for before she was allowed to embrace the end.

"Now, now, don't look so frightened. As long as you behave then there is nothing to be afraid of. Why don't you come seat yourself at the table and sample some of Kirika's wonderful beef stew?" Oriko smiled. "I'm sure you're absolutely famished."

"More like dying of hunger!" Kirika cackled. "Stupid cat couldn't have done worse by her condition. Waited too damn long to make a move."

"Don't tell me you actually care about the girl?" Oriko mockingly asked while she pulled a bowl out of a wooden cupboard carved into the vein of the cabin wall. Ignoring Kirika's snarky reply, she turned to the pot sitting on the black stove, a small fire visible through the front grate, and caught Homura's gaze still hesitantly looking at the dark wooden dining table. "Do sit down, Akemi."

She sat. At Oriko's inquiring quirk of the eyebrow, she immediately recognized her error. Years of discipline in the house of a noble and in less than a fortnight, she forgot her manners and respect. She stood again, wincing slightly as the world spun, and said, "Yes, m'lady." At the unnervingly pleased smile on Oriko's face, she tucked the wooden chair underneath herself.

"A proper lady, indeed." Any other words uttered fell on deaf ears as a steaming hot bowl of stew appeared before the famished girl, hearty brown chunks swimming in a sparkling sea of juices and oil. The meal was absolutely nothing in comparison to the long table filled with extravagantly arranged food on silver platters and deep red wine in delicate glasses she was accustomed to, but those dinners were a lost dream. Somehow, she managed to control her ravenous hunger just long enough to eat as a civilized person would or, at least, what Oriko expected from her.

The first bite was indescribable. She wanted to cry.

"So, my dear child, what brings you to our neck of the woods?" Oriko's voice pierced through the food-induced haze and delight aroused in her mind. "You were freed. You could have run to freedom. Why have you sought us out?"

She paused, spoon midway to her mouth. "I..." she quietly spoke. "The cat. It told me... you two could teach me."

"Teach you?" Kirika snorted. "Teach you what? How to come in and take someone else's food?"

"Kirika." Oriko glared. Eye twitching, Kirkia looked away and sniffed.

"Okay, fine. What do you think we can teach you? That we even want to teach you?" Kirika asked. "Why should we help you more than we already have?"

She put the spoon back in the bowl of soup and watched the bubbles in the oil of the soup were disturbed, thinking. "The cat," she nervously answered. "The cat said you would teach me how to survive."

"A little girl, lost in the woods, no family left to take care of her, no means of survival. Yes, that would explain why you are here. But Kirika is right. Why should we help you?" Smiling into her hand, Oriko's eyes gleamed dangerously to reflect the yellow candlelight and, for a brief instant, Homura pictured the same look on the Duke. Then she saw it again. The same condescending look on all the faces of all of the men and women who glanced at her and turned away in disgust. The demon child, they whispered amongst themselves. She felt anger, familiar but never before so intense, boil up her throat as she remembered. They were looking down on her existence.

"I..." She faltered. But she was sick of being treated as next to nothing. As something below human. Eyebrows furrowed, face pulled into frustration, she flung her forearm up and pointed at the scar decorating her arm. The mark that marked her as different. "I've been cursed with demon magic and I can do the same to you!"

Silence. Dead silence. Both Kirika's and Oriko's faces were drawn into stunned poses, and they remained that way for a few more moments. Shocked herself, Homura stared wide-eyed at the women and feared that she had succeeded in her threat and only warranted herself as a nuisance to be slaughtered. She almost fell out of her chair in sheer panic when Kirika began to roar with laughter and Oriko giggled uncontrollably into her hands, their eyes nearly squeezed shut with how enormous their amusement was.

"Aha, cursed with demon magic?" Kirika hollered. "Demon magic! Oh no, demon magic! Help me, I'm so scared!" She doubled over and clutched at the end of the table, shaking the bowl and its contents, and Homura bit her lip.

"Now, now!" Oriko paused, tried to control her laughter and failed. "Oh dear, oh dear."

Homura watched them both laugh and laugh and laugh until they could laugh no more. Sweat ran down the back of her neck as fear increasingly gnawed its way back to the forefront of her worries, and she had given up all hope when Kirika spoke.

"Kid, I like you. You've got some spirit in you, and I think we can put that spirit to use." Kirika's single eye focused on the frail girl and flickered red, briefly. "What do you say, Miss Oriko?"

"I merely have one more inquiry to make," Oriko conceded. She moved over to the wooden counter against the wall and began rummaging through a drawer. "Do you merely want to survive, Homura Akemi, or do you wish to take matters back into your own hands?"

"My own hands?" Homura dumbly repeated. "You mean, as in revenge?"

"Revenge? Why not just go back and stop this mess from ever happening?" Kirika cackled. She reached a pale hand out and grasped the scarred arm, trailing a cold finger down the mark with her other hand. "Yes, yes. Why not?"

"What are you talking about?" Homura asked, a shrill edge to her voice. She didn't want this. She didn't want any of this. What was Kirika even saying?

"She is not ready for that yet, Kirika. No, not quite ready at all." Turning around, hands around her back, Oriko walked back over to the table and gazed at Homura's trembling form and the arm held down on the table. "Still, she must have the intent. The intent is what matters at the moment. So tell me, child, do you wish for what you call revenge? Will you throw away everything you have or have had and become suitable to the task for which you seek to complete?"

Did she? Then she realized she didn't have a choice. The hand gripping her arm so tightly indicated so.

"Yes," she said and sealed her fate.

The next instant was a blur. She saw, but did not comprehend, how quickly Oriko's arms moved, nor the flash of silver that followed the movement, nor the wicked and crazed grin across Kirika's smile, nor the scream that tore itself from her throat. The world suspended itself, stopped spinning, and then the pain hit her, seared her senses, burned them to a crisp, and brewed a fire that destroyed every fiber of her being.

The sight of the kitchen knife embedded in the back of her hand and into the table escaped into the gap between her closing eyelids, blood pouring out and pooling in veins of wood, and as darkness bled into her vision, her last thought centered around one matter.

How had they known what she wanted?

* * *

A/N: And here it all begins. Man, this thing was sitting on my drive for months and I never had the, well, inspiration nor the imagination needed to finish the first damn chapter. Showers are great for curing writer's block, though. Gotta love me some showers. I swear I get all my ideas in there.

Many thanks to my best buddy C for pointing out funky flow and grammar mistakes and IllithidInside for proofing as well. They make sure my language doesn't degrade to mirror the way I sometimes talk.


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